VittlesVamp

Unexpected Pleasures

If expectations can potentially breed disappointment, then a lack thereof can bring delights. Such was my Friday night with my new pal Lady M. We started with a simple plan: to go to the Soho Sephora for a wee girly-girl cosmetics run, followed by a glass of vino in Nolita.

Sometimes the best laid plans...

Instead of a wee girly-girl cosmetics run, we took a sharp detour to the Nolita branch of Fresh. There, I asked for a "crack-ho" makeover, only to be told that I would have to go to Mac for that. When at Fresh a ravishing, yet understated, look would have to suffice.

Lady M and I were transported back to the days when magazines like Seventeen and Cosmo were gospel, as we indulged in testing a series of lipsticks, glosses, perfumes, skin treatments, eye shadows, blush, and brushes.

I tried to resist a major purchase, but resistance was futile.

What to do after dropping a small fortune on cosmetics?

Drop a small fortune on superb cocktails at Pegu Club, and begin chatting breathlessly about our careers, cosmetics and sex lives. (Helen Gurley Brown can eat her heart out - or pull up a chair and order a Whiskey Smash!)

Our plan was to follow up Pegu Club with a trip to the new macaroni and cheese mecca in East Village, S'mac. But, once we arrived at its doors, we were told the restaurant was closed for a private party.

Sometimes the best laid plans...

Where to go? It was Friday night. At this point others had joined, and we were a party of 5. Then it started to rain. We ducked in a doorway for cover. And what should be next door? Una Pizza Napoletana. According to Lady M, it was most definitely a pizza mecca. Heck, the place had a sign on the door that they opened at 5pm and closed whenever they ran out of fresh dough.

My kind of place.

The menu couldn't have been simpler. Four kinds of pizza to choose from - no toppings available - and no other dishes or sides to speak of. This place was about one thing and one thing only: great pizza.

My kind of place.

One bite into my Margherita pie with San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo, sea salt, extra-virgin olive oil and fresh basil, (pictured above) and I was grinning like the Cheshire cat.

Damn this was good 'za!

And, what can adequately follow staggering pizza genius?

Nothing really. Although we did try by making a quick run to Veniero's for classic pignoli nut-studded Macaroon cookies and Jordan Almonds.

All in all, it convinced me that the best-laid plan might just be the one that never gets followed - but simply gets you out the door. And, if you're very, very lucky it might just get you one of Una Pizza Napoletana's Margherita pies too.

Expectations

What is it about expectations that make or break an experience? Case in point: My regular lauding of Philadelphia's Vetri. On this very site, I have waxed enthusiastically about the restaurant's Honey-Wheat Crespelle Stuffed with Radicchio, and Guinea Hen Breast Stuffed with Foie Gras and Proscuitto served with Mushrooms - calling it "the best restaurant I've ever been to."

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Last weekend I visited the City of Brotherly Love to take my Mom to Vetri for a knockout b-day dinner.

Sadly, we weren't knocked out.

The Golden Sweet Onion Crepe with White Truffle Fondue was excellent as always. The warm Asparagus Flan with Shaved Parmesan, oozing sunny egg yolk when I cut inside, was lovely.

And, yet...

The pastas were tasty, albiet a bit on the buttery side. The main dishes were satisfying - but nothing to write home (or on my blog) about.

The price tag: Exorbitant.

Will I return? I really can't say.

Was it just a fluke off-night? Or had it fallen victim to my own hype? Had I forced the restaurant to fall from its culinary pedestal?

I won't know unless I go back...

And, with Philadelphia restaurant's like Southwark and Gayle offering intense flavors, ingenius cuisine and friendly service - at a much friendlier pricetag, I think it'll be a while before I pay a return visit to Vetri.

Pedestals. They're tricky suckers. Best be careful before erecting one.

Cheesy Lines

I get all sorts of come-ons landing in my VittlesVamp email in-box. But, when one comes with cheese, I pay heed. An invite from Fromagers Waldemar & Nadia:

NEW EVENT! June 24, 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

We're doing it again! Telepan Restaurant in conjunction with Waldemar & Nadia presents the second of a series of Saturday afternoon cheese and wine tastings. Fromagers Waldemar & Nadia have selected special summertime artisan cheeses, and paired them with wines from Telepan.

This Little Piggie...

This is a sign I'm used to seeing on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights. It is the sign of mediocre barbecue in a neighborhood bereft of 'cue until you get to Atlantic Avenue (to the Waterfront Ale House to be exact).

This on the other hand...

...is a new sign on Henry Street.

A harbinger of better barbecue options in 'hood, perhaps?

Nope.

The Blue Pig is a Westchester ice cream emporium hoping to lay claim to the county of Kings.

So, Pig n' Out doesn't have anything to worry about. And, we'll just have to wait to see if the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory ends up having to cry "Wee! Wee! Wee" all the way home.

Two Great Things - That Do NOT Taste Great Together - Part Deux

Peanut butter is a marvelous ingredient. But there are some things you just shouldn't do with it. For me, putting the sweet goo in hot dogs is definitely one idea you should avoid...Yet, according to a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, an obsessed 7-year old boy has inspired just this type of absurdity in a casing:

Russell Emel sure does like peanut butter...

...But when it came to indulging the first-grader's cravings for hot dogs garnished with a gob of Skippy, Russell's mother balked...

...Russell persisted. His mother turned to the Internet, posting half-jesting pleas that would spark a community-wide inside joke in this Clearfield County city of 8,000: Could local meat market operator J. LeRoy Palumbo Jr. appease Russell by creating a peanut butter hot dog?

Mr. Palumbo, whose culinary experiments in the landmark market his grandfather, Dominic, founded in 1927 have resulted in such treats as jalapeno-cheese hot dogs and wild boar jerky, took up the challenge. He and production manager Tom Weaver produced a 25-pound experimental batch, even though they feared it would be awful.

As an unmistakable nutty smell wafted from the smokehouse under Palumbo's Meats of Du Bois, Mr. Palumbo fired off a response to the Web site, announcing, "Come get 'em." That batch sold out in hours. So did the next.

Three weeks later, Mr. Palumbo has sold nearly 1,000 pounds of the protein-packed franks and can barely keep them in his cooler after a "Peanut Butter Hot Dogs" sign goes up over his shop.

He's talking with a peanut-butter producer about marketing the culinary creation to a wider audience. Some of his neighbors are kicking around the idea of a community festival dedicated to the dogs.

I don't know about you. But right now, the combo of pork rinds and white chocolate sounds downright appetizing.

Bounty

No, not the "quicker picker upper," but the kind of bounty that's fresh picked and juicy. How could I resist these plump, golden specimens? These apricots were meant for my kitchen. Meant for my ice cream maker. Meant for sorbet.

Apricot Sorbet

8 fresh apricots, chopped
1 1/2 cups dried apricot, chopped
1 1/2 cups Ros

A Work In Progress

It has been an interesting few days. And I mean interesting in the best sense of the word.

Interesting as in meeting a new friend on a rainy day for a West Village repast at Wallse including Maine Lobster with Potato R

Wal-Mart Puts Foodies on the Warpath

And Wal-Mart thought South Park was rough on them? With the news that the megalomaniac superstore monolith is going to be stocking its shelves with organic foodstuffs, some foodies are coming out in full force to protest.

Perhaps that's a bit of hyperbole. But at the very least, Wal-Mart did end up taking a verbal beating at Sunday's Slow Food New York convivium annual meeting. According to the article in last week's New York Times Magazine which sparked the debate:

Wal-Mart will buy its organic food from whichever producers can produce it most cheaply, and these will not be the sort of farmers you picture when you hear the word "organic." Big supermarkets want to do business only with big farmers growing lots of the same thing, not because big monoculture farms are any more efficient (they aren't) but because it's easier to buy all your carrots from a single megafarm than to contract with hundreds of smaller growers. The "transaction costs" are lower, even when the price and the quality are the same. This is just one of the many ways in which the logic of industrial capitalism and the logic of biology on a farm come into conflict. At least in the short run, the logic of capitalism usually prevails.

Wal-Mart's push into the organic market won't do much for small organic farmers, that seems plain enough. But it may also spell trouble for the big growers it will favor. Wal-Mart has a reputation for driving down prices by squeezing its suppliers, especially after those suppliers have invested heavily to boost production to feed the Wal-Mart maw. Having done that, the supplier will find itself at Wal-Mart's mercy when the company decides it no longer wants to pay a price that enables the farmer to make a living. When that happens, the notion of responsibly priced food will be sacrificed to the imperatives of survival, and the pressure to cut corners will become irresistible.

Up to now, the federal organic standards have provided a bulwark against that pressure. Yet with the industrialization of organic, these rules are themselves coming under mounting pressure, and forgive my skepticism, but it's hard to believe that the lobbyists from Wal-Mart are going to play a constructive role in defending those standards from efforts to weaken them. Just this past year the Organic Trade Association used lobbyists who do work for Kraft Foods to move a bill through Congress that will make it easier to include synthetic ingredients in products labeled organic.

In addition, it might appear that local farmers who provide high-quality organic products are going to be devastated by Wal-Mart's move into the space. But, do those small, local farmers reach the tables of middle America to begin with?

I think not.

They are reaching the yuppies and hardcore foodies that gravitate towards local farmer markets. They are reaching the chefs and restaurants that have customers who like seeing that their snap peas came from "such and such farm" and that their peaches harvested from "such and such grove," where they were lovingly tended to and picked at the peak of ripeness.

I like to think there is room for everyone at the table. And, if Wal-Mart helps improve offerings for folks that would be eating processed, genetically-modified gunk without it, who am I to argue? I'm simply one of those yuppie, hardcore foodies that gravitates towards local farmer markets and likes to dine a restaurants where menus offer me snap peas from "such an such farm" and peaches harvested from "such and such grove."

Too Spoiled for Starbucks

Sometimes a meal is so satisfying that the idea of dessert doesn't appeal. You don't want to ruin the sated glow with a sweet. Such was my recent dinner with colleagues at D.C.'s answer to Indian haute cuisine - Rasika.

It was a marvelous meal. From the Sweet Potato Tuk with tamarind date chutney to the rich Lamb Biriyani, it was plate-licking good.

Why ruin it with a sugary end?

No. Something refined was called for. Slightly bitter. Slightly sweet.

Coffee. Good coffee. No. Strike that. Great coffee.

And, there it was on the menu - with a seemingly minor addition: the word "flamb

Diner Dish

Who are the people that order Lobster Tails off of a diner menu? Are they insane? Do they have a death wish? Or do they just not know the basic rule of diner dining: STICK TO BASIC DINER FOOD!!!

Burgers, Grilled Cheese, Greek Salads and breakfast fare like French Toast are all winners. More restaurant-style dishes like Veal Scallopine or Shrimp Scampi - not so much.

Of course, there are a few exceptions to the rule. Exceptions come with exceptional diners. And, I am lucky enough to claim one in my 'hood: Teresa's.

Admittedly, I take the place - and its perfectly crisp Blintzes stuffed with sweet farmer's cheese and fresh blueberries - for granted. It took a business acquaitance to remind me that this place is worthy of applause.

Its Roast Chicken is juicy and flavorful. That culinary feat is difficult for some better restaurants to master. Its Potato Latkes rival mine. And, that culinary feat is INCREDIBLY difficult for some better Jewish mamas to master. Their selection of soups is delish. I'm particularly fond of the Mushroom Barley, and apparently the Chicken has its share of high-powered fans too.

So, today I give Teresa's a round of applause. Oh heck, make it a standing ovation!

Mind you, if they ever add Lobster Tails to the menu, I still think I'll take a pass and order the Kielbasa with a side of Potato Pierogi instead.